Exploring secondary students’ emergency remote teaching and learning experience in science curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic

Oct 15, 2026

Globally, schools faced mandatory shutdowns during the COVID-19 outbreak, leading teachers and students to switch to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) as a rapid, unplanned response. This basic qualitative study explores secondary students’ ERTL experiences and satisfaction with science-curriculum tools, focusing on online complexity in experimentation and phenomena modelling. Three grade-8 focus groups show predominantly negative effects on engagement and performance due to home learning conditions, remote duration, and internet distractions, yet highlight benefits from gamified pop-quizzes, video apps, and interactive simulations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

OPEN ACCESS Research Article Contemporary Educational Technology, 2023, 15(4), ep473 ISSN: 1309-517X (Online) Exploring secondary students’ emergency remote teaching and learning experience in science curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic Emily Hope Morrison 1 0009-0004-0069-0184 Dimitrios Vlachopoulos 2* 0000-0002-2033-7343 1 University of Essex Online, Leeds, UNITED KINGDOM 2 Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, THE NETHERLANDS * [Corresponding author:](Corresponding author: vlachopoulos@rsm.nl)[ vlachopoulos@rsm.nl](Corresponding author: vlachopoulos@rsm.nl) Citation: Morrison, E. H., & Vlachopoulos, D. (2023) . Exploring secondary students’ emergency remote teaching and learning experience in science curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic. Contemporary Educational Technology, 15(4), ep473. [https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/13703](https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/13703) ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT | Received: 1 May 2023
Accepted: 5 Sep 2023 | Globally, schools were faced with mandatory shutdowns in the wake of the recent COVID-19 outbreak. To avoid disruption in the education process, teachers and students used alternative education strategies and solutions, switching to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) . This change was completely unanticipated, and thus can only be perceived as a reactionary measure. The purpose of this basic qualitative study is to explore the experience of secondary students regarding ERTL, as well as their satisfaction with the tools used in the science curriculum. Challenging the assumption that the learning experience during ERTL would be similar in most subject areas, this qualitative study focuses on the aspects of the science curriculum that were complex to offer in an online setting, including experimentation and modelling of phenomena. To achieve this purpose, three focus groups with grade 8 students from an international school were conducted. Most of the participants described ERTL experience as having a predominantly negative affect on their engagement and academic performance, mainly because of their poor home learning environments, the duration of remote teaching, and the distractions that derive from the ongoing use of the Internet. At the same time, the findings revealed that, beyond the accessibility and interactivity appropriate technologies can offer, the use of tools like gamified pop-quizzes, video applications and interactive simulations can enhance the learning experience. The procedure followed for this research is easy to replicate at different contexts and, thus, generate enough data to reimagine science education from the lessons learned during ERTL.
Keywords: emergency remote teaching and learning, secondary education, science curriculum, qualitative research, technology for science curriculum, educational technology | | --- | --- | | INTRODUCTION | | During the novel coronavirus 19 (COVID-19) pandemic, public and private schools around the globe were faced with mandatory closures to minimize the transfer of the virus (Vlachopoulos, 2020) . In Cambodia, where the primary research for this study took place, schools were initially shut down temporarily, and then indefinitely, in March 2020 by the Cambodian Government as a precaution against COVID-19 (Sok & Sun, 2020) . This meant that schools had to adopt alternative teaching and strategies and learning solutions, resulting in students conducting their learning via remote internet technology and in digital learning environments (DeCoito & Estaiteyeh, 2022) . This posed many challenges for both teachers and studentschallenges that had to be solved almost immediately. The pandemic left no time to develop a well-thoughtout approach and, as such, all solutions were, at least initially, wholly reactionary and poorly resourced (Hodges et al., 2020; Radhamani et al., 2021). After reviewing the plethora of studies published between 2020 and 2022 on the implementa

FAQs

Why did schools adopt emergency remote teaching during COVID-19?

Schools faced mandatory shutdowns to limit virus transmission. Teachers and students adopted ERTL to avoid disruption, using available alternative teaching strategies and solutions.

What did the study find about secondary students’ ERTL experience?

Most participants reported predominantly negative effects on engagement and academic performance, driven mainly by poor home learning environments, the duration of remote teaching, and internet-related distractions.

Which science-curriculum tools were suggested to improve learning during ERTL?

The findings indicate that accessible and interactive technologies can enhance learning, including gamified pop-quizzes, video applications, and interactive simulations.

Oct 15, 2026

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